.@relativityspace CEO Tim Ellis joined CNBC, live from inside the company's 3D-printing rocket factory, to announce the signing of its first Pentagon launch contract with the Defense Innovation Unit:
Where does Amazon and Kuiper fit into all of this? Bezos still involved with Amazon as founder and probably holds a lot of influence there, and their satellite project needs a lot of launch capacity and high rate of progress to keep up with SpaceX’s blindly fast pace of execution or risk being left in the dust. Arianespace, ULA, even Blue... none of them seem to be matching SpaceX rate of innovation by even 1/10th. Rocket Lab has gone far with their team and quite innovative, and their recently announced larger rocket could fit the bill for Kuiper plus they now have public funding to do it. Relativity’s announcement of Terran R their fully reusable Falcon 9 sized rocket is uncannily timed with this visit...
Quote from: playadelmars on 03/08/2021 09:42 pmWhere does Amazon and Kuiper fit into all of this? Bezos still involved with Amazon as founder and probably holds a lot of influence there, and their satellite project needs a lot of launch capacity and high rate of progress to keep up with SpaceX’s blindly fast pace of execution or risk being left in the dust. Arianespace, ULA, even Blue... none of them seem to be matching SpaceX rate of innovation by even 1/10th. Rocket Lab has gone far with their team and quite innovative, and their recently announced larger rocket could fit the bill for Kuiper plus they now have public funding to do it. Relativity’s announcement of Terran R their fully reusable Falcon 9 sized rocket is uncannily timed with this visit...Blue may just be investing in Relativity 3D technology ie buying the printers or contract them to build parts of NG. Sent from my SM-T810 using Tapatalk
Quote from: TrevorMonty on 03/09/2021 05:29 pmQuote from: playadelmars on 03/08/2021 09:42 pmWhere does Amazon and Kuiper fit into all of this? Bezos still involved with Amazon as founder and probably holds a lot of influence there, and their satellite project needs a lot of launch capacity and high rate of progress to keep up with SpaceX’s blindly fast pace of execution or risk being left in the dust. Arianespace, ULA, even Blue... none of them seem to be matching SpaceX rate of innovation by even 1/10th. Rocket Lab has gone far with their team and quite innovative, and their recently announced larger rocket could fit the bill for Kuiper plus they now have public funding to do it. Relativity’s announcement of Terran R their fully reusable Falcon 9 sized rocket is uncannily timed with this visit...Blue may just be investing in Relativity 3D technology ie buying the printers or contract them to build parts of NG. Sent from my SM-T810 using TapatalkI would bet hard against this.
Quote from: Robotbeat on 03/09/2021 06:43 pmQuote from: TrevorMonty on 03/09/2021 05:29 pmQuote from: playadelmars on 03/08/2021 09:42 pmWhere does Amazon and Kuiper fit into all of this? Bezos still involved with Amazon as founder and probably holds a lot of influence there, and their satellite project needs a lot of launch capacity and high rate of progress to keep up with SpaceX’s blindly fast pace of execution or risk being left in the dust. Arianespace, ULA, even Blue... none of them seem to be matching SpaceX rate of innovation by even 1/10th. Rocket Lab has gone far with their team and quite innovative, and their recently announced larger rocket could fit the bill for Kuiper plus they now have public funding to do it. Relativity’s announcement of Terran R their fully reusable Falcon 9 sized rocket is uncannily timed with this visit...Blue may just be investing in Relativity 3D technology ie buying the printers or contract them to build parts of NG. Sent from my SM-T810 using TapatalkI would bet hard against this.Anyone dealing with Bezos has to be VERY cautious to not get the "Amazon Basics" treatment. (where they just copy/steal ideas and do them in-house)
In an interview, Relativity CEO Tim Ellis said the company recently printed the second stage that will be used on the inaugural flight of the Terran 1 rocket, which is presently scheduled to take place before the end of 2021. The stage was printed at a rate of about 1 linear foot per day, so it took about three weeks in total to print the 20-foot tall second stage."We're now confident in this build process," Ellis said. "Not only is the second stage now completed, but we're 75 percent of the way through printing the rocket's first stage."...Relativity has also been able to prove the merits of 3D printing by rapidly changing the metal used in the thrust chamber of its Aeon engine—nine of which will power the rocket's first stage. Engineers started out using a nickel-based alloy inside the thrust chamber because it was an easier material to work with during the manufacturing process. But a copper-based alloy has better conductivity and allows for higher combustion temperatures—and therefore a higher-efficiency engine.
Progress is key as we work towards first launch! Our world-class team successfully removed the Stage 2 flight print tank out of its print cell at our #factoryofthefuture. We are excited to keep the momentum going! #RelativitySpace #3DPrinting #Innovation
Here's a look behind-the-scenes as our team removes the Stage 2 flight print from the print cell.📽️
Could Blue sell the BE-4 for the Terran-R to Relativity?
Because Relativity will need this technology for future rockets, such as the larger Terran R rocket that will use a larger version of the Aeon engine, it decided to go ahead and make the change to a copper-based thrust chamber and nozzle now.
In an interview, Relativity CEO Tim Ellis said the company recently printed the second stage that will be used on the inaugural flight of the Terran 1 rocket, which is presently scheduled to take place before the end of 2021. The stage was printed at a rate of about 1 linear foot per day, so it took about three weeks in total to print the 20-foot tall second stage.
Relativity has also been able to prove the merits of 3D printing by rapidly changing the metal used in the thrust chamber of its Aeon engine—nine of which will power the rocket's first stage. Engineers started out using a nickel-based alloy inside the thrust chamber because it was an easier material to work with during the manufacturing process. But a copper-based alloy has better conductivity and allows for higher combustion temperatures—and therefore a higher-efficiency engine.
Quote from: playadelmars on 11/05/2019 09:21 pmhttps://twitter.com/relativityspace/status/1191770988423372800?s=21First time I believe seeing print speed of Stargate published. 1 ft per day on what looks to be 7-8 ft diameter tank. So that’s about 24 sq ft per day of wall area per printer. They have 4 now, each one can print about 30 foot tall. So scaling to a Falcon 9 size vehicle, that would take about 8 printers to do it in pieces. Multiplying out, I get about 45 days to print an entire Falcon 9. That’s pretty quick and low cost I’d believe.In the future they won’t be limited to just simple cylindrical shapes with skin-stringers like Falcon and Starship, they could do non-symmetric shapes and also use things like isogrid and topology to tune structure shapes. The question is if they can actually pull this technology off but if they do seems like a game changer.What's the time delta versus a welded tank? I understand there's tooling time, but once tooling is made, it's a matter of popping out tanks is it not?
https://twitter.com/relativityspace/status/1191770988423372800?s=21First time I believe seeing print speed of Stargate published. 1 ft per day on what looks to be 7-8 ft diameter tank. So that’s about 24 sq ft per day of wall area per printer. They have 4 now, each one can print about 30 foot tall. So scaling to a Falcon 9 size vehicle, that would take about 8 printers to do it in pieces. Multiplying out, I get about 45 days to print an entire Falcon 9. That’s pretty quick and low cost I’d believe.In the future they won’t be limited to just simple cylindrical shapes with skin-stringers like Falcon and Starship, they could do non-symmetric shapes and also use things like isogrid and topology to tune structure shapes. The question is if they can actually pull this technology off but if they do seems like a game changer.
Thirdly: copper >> Inconel. No, really? This company is what, 5 years old? And making statements like this? Kindergarden.
Quote from: ringsider on 04/05/2021 07:35 amThirdly: copper >> Inconel. No, really? This company is what, 5 years old? And making statements like this? Kindergarden.Copper based alloys are head and shoulders above nickel based alloys for conducting heat away. No alloy is a Swiss Army knife.
